Operation: Vortex
Alpha Team is bored. Nothing big has happened in the galaxy since the Two Conquerors were defeated. Suddenly, they’re called to help catch a mysterious vigilante roaming Antropolis. Story ''02:50 Makuhero Standard Time, September 5, 2015'' Alpha Team leader William Furno pulled his Velocity XV Gamma hovercar, painted the same deep shade of red as him, into the parking lot of the long-abandoned Makuhero Observatory. As soon as the car came to a complete stop, Furno pressed the Start/Stop button on his chronometer, which was timing his drive from Hero Factory’s garage to the observatory. The snowy weather up in the mountains provided a stark contrast to the coastal climate of Makuhero City. Looking at the time displayed on his chronometer, he said to himself, “334.807 seconds. I think that’s a record.” Furno climbed out of the very low car and walked to the edge of the parking lot that provided a scenic view of Makuhero City’s nighttime lights. Even at a great distance, the Hero Factory Assembly Tower in the middle of the city was unmistakable. While the freezing air howled and the snow blew around him, he remained captivated by the city lights below. After a minute, Furno got back in his car and prepared to time how long it would take to drive back to the Hero Factory garage. He had just put the car in reverse and started to back up when he heard sirens behind him. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw a car with flashing lights and a Hero Factory logo on the side. Someone in that car, who had a megaphone, yelled, “You are under arrest for extreme speeding!” Furno turned off his hovercar and stepped out. “Under arrest? Do you know who you’re talking to? I’m the leader of Alpha Team!” He expected a random Hero to exit the squad car, but instead it was someone very familiar to him. “I know who I’m talking to. I’m your second-in-command, Jimi Stringer.” “Oh . . . I’m so sorry, Stringer.” “Look, I understand that you were bored. It’s been a slow past couple of weeks in terms of crime. But you were clocked at over 400 miles per hour on the Fox Expressway. That seems at least a little excessive, don’t you—” “I know! I get it!” Furno paused after that quick outburst. “I understand that I made a big mistake. I can’t imagine what Stormer would have said about this. If he were still around, that is.” “I know you have the ability to learn from your mistakes, so I will let you off with a warning. But if you’re ever again caught driving at speeds that are anywhere close to what you just reached, I will report you to Hero Factory Management, and you’ll probably end up being demoted from team leader.” “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.” Furno then proceeded to get back in his car. “Good night, Stringer.” Furno fastened his five-point seat belt, slammed the door shut, and fired up the laser jet engine. Just as he shifted into reverse, he was interrupted again, this time by a call from Mission Control. “Are you there, Furno? This is Zib.” “I’m here,” answered Furno. “Do you have a mission for me?” “Yes. A Hero stationed in another system called me, asking for assistance. I need you and the rest of your team to get to the Orbital HQ as soon as possible.” “Got it. I’ll be right there.” Furno got out of his car, and told Stringer, who had just entered his car, “Zib needs us to get to the Hero Factory HQ as soon as possible.” Stringer was not amused. “When he says, ‘as soon as possible,’ he means, ‘as soon as possible without endangering lives and property.’ Get back in your car and notify Bulk and Nex. Once you’re ready to go, I’ll follow behind you to make sure you drive in a reasonable manner.” ''08:35 Makuhero Standard Time, September 5, 2015'' The four members of Alpha Team, Furno, Stringer, Bulk, and Nex, arrived at Mission Control in the Hero Factory Orbital Headquarters. Zib had his back to them, managing missions as he normally did. Then he got a notification on his screen saying there was someone behind him. So he turned around and said, “There you are! So, as I was saying, I got a call from another Hero who was asking for assistance. Here is a recording of that call.” Zib pressed the play button, and the phone call was played back on the computer, starting with Zib saying, “Hello?” Responding in a female voice, “This is Omicron 5 Team, stationed at Antropolis. You were probably able to tell that from the Caller ID, but anyway, we need help catching someone who’s been bugging us lately. When we get a report of a robbery or something, we arrive at the scene of the crime just to find the perpetrator on the floor, dead. This has happened three times over the past seven days.” “This isn’t the emergency hotline, you know.” “I know. I want to know if Alpha Team is currently on any missions. I think they would be a great help in this situation.” “Oh, um, let me check.” The line went silent for several seconds. “No, they’re not. They’re currently chilling out in Makuhero City. Do you want me to send them to Antropolis?” “Um, yes? Isn’t that the whole reason why I’m calling in the first place‽” “Okay. I’ll call you back once I have Alpha Team assembled.” “Thank you. Well, I’m sorry for getting angry about it. Goodbye.” There was a click, and the call was over. “If they need help catching someone, Alpha Team is their best bet,” said Furno. “I guess you can call them back now.” Zib typed in Omicron 5 Team’s HeroNet address on his control panel and pressed Enter. After a short wait, an image of Rachael Woolf, the leader of Omicron 5 Team, appeared on the screen. As the name implied, her helmet was shaped like a wolf’s head. “This is Hero Factory Mission Control, do you read me?” said Zib. “Yep,” said Woolf. “Before you ask, I don’t have any further details regarding my situation.” “Well, as you can see here, I have Alpha Team assembled. I will send them on their way to Antropolis shortly.” “Good! If my team gathers any further information, I will fill them in when they arrive. Talk to you later!” The screen then went blank. “I think you all know what to do by now,” said Zib. “Your shuttle is currently being prepared for launch.” Alpha Team loaded all their equipment on their private shuttle, which was docked to the Hero Factory Orbital HQ, and departed for Antropolis. ''11:20 Antropolis Standard Time, October 3, 2015'' Surrounded by an endless expanse of skyscrapers, the Antropolis Intergalactic Spaceport was the port of entry for anyone wanting to visit the city. After their shuttle landed there, the members of Alpha Team got on the brand-new underground transport railway, headed for the local Hero Factory outpost. No one else on the train seemed to be happy with the amount of space the Heroes were taking up with all of their gear. “Wow, this train is super busy,” said Furno. “Kid, you have no idea how bad it was before they dug these tunnels,” said Bulk. “About ten years ago, Stormer, Stringer, and I had to respond to a time bomb that was reported in the Antropolis Spaceport. Even though it was just a few miles away from our outpost, it took us an hour to drive there. Thankfully, we were able to disarm the bomb with a minute and five seconds on the clock. But when we analyzed the bomb later, we found that it was set to detonate when the timer reached one minute.” “Interesting. You’ve always been the type who wants to set off bombs,” said Nex. “Yeah, well, if you know how to blow things up, you need to know how to stop things from blowing up.” The local Hero Factory outpost was located inside the aptly-named Rachael Woolf Tower, a skyscraper that looked like a really tall, skinny pyramid made of glass. When they entered the building, they and all their weapons had to pass through a security checkpoint, but since there was nothing suspicious about them, they got through with no problem. Right past the security checkpoint was the front desk. To their surprise, it wasn’t some random receptionist sitting there, but Rachael Woolf herself. “Welcome to the tower that’s named after me,” she said. “How may I help you?” “We’re here to help you catch the someone who’s been bugging you for the past few days,” said Furno. She immediately knew whom Furno was referring to. “It’s been a month since I made that call. Anyway, come and follow me to the briefing room, on the second floor.” While they were going up the stairs, Woolf noticed that Furno’s nameplate had “Α1-L” on it. “Wait a minute, Furno. When did you become the leader of Alpha Team? What happened to the great Preston Stormer?” “He died four years ago, during a mission at Mekron City. It was all over the galactic news when it happened. I’m surprised you don’t remember,” said Furno. “Huh. Well, I do forget things sometimes. The engineers are worried about my core degrading due to age, and they told me memory loss was the first symptom of that.” The briefing room was highly rectangular, with the briefing table shaped to match. On one of the room’s long sides, there was a projector screen. The only object on the table was a small scrap of paper with writing on it. Woolf sat down in a seat on the narrow side of the table, while the members of Alpha Team took the first seat they could get to. “Where’s the rest of your team?” asked Furno. “They’re all on missions right now. Most of the incidents that happen in the city are not major enough to require more than one Hero, much less the entire team. Anyway, in the twenty-eight days it took your ship to get to the Antrosia system, my team was able to gather further information,” said Woolf, picking up the scrap of paper. “We found this at one of the crime scenes. The paper says, ‘Vortex was here.’ Eyewitnesses described Vortex as ‘fast as a blur,’ ‘faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move,’ and ‘too fast to see.’ Vortex is definitely working alone.” “From what you’re saying, it sounds like we just need to be faster than Vortex,” said Bulk. “With you here,” said Woolf, pointing at Bulk, “being faster than Vortex is out of the question, but I think it’s still worth a shot. First, I need to show y’all how the launch system works. Then, we just have to wait for a call to come in.” ''15:45 Antropolis Standard Time, October 3, 2015'' Furno, Bulk, Nex, and Stringer were all enjoying themselves, playing ping-pong in the break room. Nex put some spin on the ball as he hit it towards Bulk’s side of the table. Bulk spiked the ball as it bounced off his edge of the table, scoring a point. On an adjacent table, Furno and Stringer were evenly matched, neither able to score over the other. They were interrupted by Woolf opening the door. She had long, sharp blades clipped onto her forearms. The other Heroes stopped what they were doing, stared at Woolf, and let the ping-pong balls bounce off the tables and across the room. “We just got an emergency call!” said Woolf. “Follow me to the launch area, quickly!” Quickly, the five Heroes rushed down the stairs to the third floor, where the launch area was. It was an industrial looking room, with concrete walls, floor, and ceiling. On one side of the room was a row of five Hero Pods, small rockets with room to fit one Hero each, and a mechanism to push them, one at a time, into the launch tube. “Everyone, get your weapons and pick one of the pods to get in!” ordered Woolf. “I’ll get into the first one!” Once all of the Heroes were in a pod, the pods were fired at high speed out of the launch tube, which went all the way to the top of the Rachael Woolf Tower. The Heroes could communicate with each other and Mission Control via radio. “Where are we going?” asked Furno. The local mission manager briefed them on the mission. “The call came from an automated break-in reporting system on the thirteenth floor of a high-rise apartment in the Southeast District. No further details about the situation are known, but we assume it’s a burglar. You will be ejected from your Hero Pods and land on the roof of the building. Good luck!” “Of course, our real main objective is to catch Vortex, if he or she shows up,” said Stringer. “Oh, and how long have you been using Hero Pods? They weren’t here the last time I was in Antropolis.” “When the tower was renovated, around eight years ago. Traffic on the streets was permanently gridlocked, it didn’t seem like the underground tunnels would ever get constructed, and crime was on the rise. We needed a faster way to cross the city and respond to emergencies. The engineers came up with a unique system that allowed us to—” “Well, they’re not unique,” blurted Nex. “the Assembly Tower has Hero Pods, as well as every other major city I’ve been to.” The Hero Pods flew directly over the high-rise apartment, ejecting the Heroes onto the roof. Most of the Heroes were able to stick the landing, but Bulk landed on his back. On the roof, there was a helipad and a door to enter the stairwell. Getting in a single-file line, the Heroes descended the flights of stairs as fast as they could. “Why aren’t we taking the elevator?” asked Nex. “I’ve timed it. Going down flights of stairs is much faster than the elevator, especially when said elevator is on a different floor,” said Woolf. After a minute, they made it down seven floors to the thirteenth floor and began looking down the hallway for the room that had been broken into. “Hmm. I’m guessing it’s the room at the very end of the hall, the one that’s had the door blown off its hinges,” said Furno. They all entered the room and found a robot packing any electronics he could find into his backpack. “You’re under arrest for robbing this apartment,” said Woolf. With five Heroes’ weapons pointed directly at him, the burglar had no choice but to surrender. Dropping what he was holding, he raised both hands in the air. Woolf approached the burglar with a pair of Hero Cuffs while the others held their weapons steadily. Before she had a chance to cuff the burglar, a crossbow bolt crashed through the window, sending shards of glass flying everywhere, and went right through the burglar’s neck, disabling him. Furno lowered his plasma blaster. “What? What happened?” “It must have been Vortex,” said Woolf. “Come look out the window.” They gathered around the broken window to look at a skyscraper on the other side of the street. There was a robot halfway up that skyscraper, holding a grappling hook launcher in one hand and a crossbow in the other. It then reeled in the grappling hook and jumped down into an alley. “Well, that was a mission failed,” said Stringer. The dejected Heroes took the elevator down to the ground floor. Outside the apartment complex, a Hero Factory van was waiting to take them back to the Rachael Woolf Tower. ''20:10 Antropolis Standard Time, October 3, 2015'' Later, in the evening, the Heroes went back to the briefing room to discuss a new plan. “Now that we know we can’t catch Vortex by simply beating him or her to the crime scene, I think we will actually have to look for Vortex. Anyone have any ideas on where to look?” asked Woolf. “No,” said Bulk. “Wherever Vortex is hiding, it has two things,” said Stringer. “All robots need to charge themselves from time to time. Also, since Vortex is showing up to where the emergency calls come from, that means it has a means of tapping into your call center communications.” “There are many private locations with charging stations. However, there are only a few places where one could install a wiretapping device to listen in on the emergency calls we receive,” said Woolf. “I could perform bisection analysis on all the HeroNet nodes in Antropolis’s network to see who’s intercepting the callers’ data packets. It would take, perhaps, a week.” said Nex. Bulk slammed his fist on the table, nearly breaking it in half. “There’s gotta be a simpler way than that. I didn’t bring my minigun all the way here just to have Nex do all the work.” “I got an idea,” said Furno, raising a finger. “If our assumptions about Vortex are correct, then we can make a fake emergency call somewhere and lead him or her right to where we want.” Woolf nodded. “I didn’t expect such clever thinking from a rookie like you, Furno. I like your idea; let’s go along with it.” They let the local mission control and call center know about their plan, and then waited for the right time to act it out. ''04:50 Antropolis Standard Time, October 4, 2015'' An unmarked white passenger van pulled in front of the local hardware store in the shopping district and stopped. The power-saving street lamps in the empty parking lot detected the van’s motion and turned on. Woolf was driving the van, Furno was riding shotgun, and the other Heroes sat in the rows of seats behind them. Nex and Stringer sat next to each other. Bulk, who was carrying his minigun, took up a whole row by himself. As they piled out of the van, Woolf unlocked the front door of the hardware store and they went to hide in the middle of the nuts and bolts aisle. In the pitch-darkness, the only way they could see anything was with their helmet lights. “Ready, Nex?” asked Woolf. “Yep. I’m placing the call now.” Nex held his cell phone up to his mouth and waited for the Antropolis Hero Factory Outpost to pick up their phone. “Hero hotline, please state the nature of your crisis.” Then Nex, trying to sound as monotonous as possible, said, “This is the automatic break-in reporting system installed at Ol’ Gordon’s Hardware Store. A break-in has been detected.” “A Hero team has been dispatched to your location. ETA, four minutes.” Nex pushed the End Call button on his cell phone and set a timer for four minutes. “Now all we have to do is wait for Vortex to show up. And if our assumptions are correct, that should take less than four minutes.” As the seconds ticked by on Nex’s timer, the Heroes grew increasingly anxious. There was no sound, no light, and certainly no motion in the hardware store. Who was to say Vortex wasn’t already there? Twenty seconds were left on the timer when they heard the sound of breaking glass at the front of the store. They readied their weapons, aimed at the front of the aisle and prepared for a direct confrontation. Instead, a smoke bomb was lobbed over from the other side of the shelves and landed right in the middle of them. In seconds, a dense smoke screen surrounded them, and none of them could see anything, not even each other. “We’re sitting ducks!” said Furno. “We should, at the very least, be standing ducks,” said Stringer. “Move out of the smoke screen.” As they moved out of the expanding smoke screen, Furno, Woolf, and Stringer went to the front of the aisle, and Bulk and Nex went to the back. “I don’t see anyone,” said Bulk. Just as he said that, two crossbow bolts pierced Nex’s backside. Then the tips of the bolts exploded, knocking Nex down. Bulk looked up at the top of the shelf and saw a dark blue figure with glowing orange eyes, holding two automatic crossbows, standing on top of the shelf near the ceiling. Assuming it to be Vortex, Bulk aimed his minigun at it and held down the trigger. But Vortex was too agile and dodged all of Bulk’s shots as it ran to the other end of the shelf and jumped down to the floor. Vortex then fired more explosive bolts down the aisle at Woolf, Furno, and Stringer. While Woolf stood behind Furno for protection, Furno used his shield to block three of the shots. Stringer was hit by one, taking him out of the fight. Woolf then got out from behind Furno and lunged at Vortex with her forearm-mounted blades. One of the blades went right through Vortex’s neck, instantly disabling it. “For a Hero who’s almost as old as Hero Factory itself, your fighting skills are pretty impressive,” commented Furno. Woolf removed the blade from Vortex’s neck and glared at Furno. “I know you’re exaggerating about my age, but still. You ought to be impressed by the skills of someone who has eight times as much combat experience as you.” Instead of commenting on Woolf’s comment on his comment, Furno simply came over to take a closer look at Vortex. “This is interesting. That’s the construction of a 2.0 series Hero all right, but I don’t see any identifying marks anywhere.” Laying Vortex on the ground, Woolf added, “It also looks like it has a specially designed Hero Core cover that hides the fact that it’s got a Hero Core.” “There’s only one explanation I can think of, but it doesn’t seem possible. Could it be . . . could this be Sarah Vortex, the 2.1 prototype Hero?” asked Furno. “There’s no way. This leaves us with more questions than answers. We better take her in and do some more research.” “And then write a sizable check to Ol’ Gordon for the damage we caused to his hardware store.” ''16:30 Antropolis Standard Time, October 7, 2015'' Woolf was sitting by herself in the briefing room of the Antropolis Hero Factory Outpost, in the seat in which she always sat, with a laptop in front of her. Bulk entered the room with Sarah Vortex. “It’s been a few days, but they finally got her fixed, along with Nex and Stringer,” said Bulk. “Bulk, you can leave us now. Vortex, please, take a seat. I would like to talk with you.” After Bulk left the room, Vortex slid out the chair on the opposite side of the table from Woolf and sat down in it. “How are you feeling right now?” asked Woolf. “To be honest . . . I feel pretty good,” said Vortex. “I haven’t had a proper core charge in a long time.” “And we do have the galaxy’s best medibots. Now, there’s some things I’m very curious to know.” Woolf typed something into her laptop. “It says here that your last mission was with Beta 3 Team, at the planet Shraeon A. The mission log shows that you and the rest of your team were violently attacked by a mob of civilians at your outpost. We assumed you were all dead. How did you survive?” “I don’t remember all the details. I just remember somehow being able to slip away and escape amidst the chaos. Oh, and I killed a few in the mob on my way out, too.” “How did you get all the way to Antropolis, then?” “Once I had escaped and all my teammates were dead, I didn’t know what to do. I just went around and executed anyone I saw acting unjustly. And on Shraeon A, most of the robots act unjustly. When I ran out of crossbow bolts, I would have to go to a trustworthy weaponsmith, which again, is pretty rare to find on Shraeon A. After a few years, I was found by one of the warlords, and instead of trying to kill me, like I thought he would, he hired me to assassinate another warlord in exchange for a large sum of gold. He didn’t actually give me a choice in the matter, though. I infiltrated the other warlord’s citadel, but before I could reach my target, I was found by one of the guards. I barely escaped. Once I reached a safe location, I had time to stop and think about what had just happened. I was always a master of stealth and escape, but now I had two warlords who were going to go specifically after me. “For the first time in my life, I actually felt fear. I realized the only way I could stay alive was by getting off that wretched planet. As soon as I could, I got to the spaceport and stowed away in the cargo hold of the next ship to launch. And it just happened to stop right here, at Antropolis.” Woolf remained silent for a moment to make sure Vortex didn’t have anything more to say. “Riveting tale. And how were you able to arrive at the crime scenes before we did?” “You probably figured this out already, but I was listening in on all of the call center’s calls.” “Yeah. From what location were you doing this?” “So, shortly after I arrived in Antropolis, I went into an alley in the Southeast District, and I found the base of a criminal organization. They mainly did loan sharking, I think. Anyway, I destroyed all the bad guys in there and went down to the basement, where they had some high-tech equipment, such as a HeroNet traffic monitor. Using that, I was able to listen to every emergency call that came in. I can show you if you want.” Woolf leaned back in her chair. “Interesting. Well, I’m afraid I can’t let you keep working on your own, so you will be assigned to Omicron 5 Team, effective immediately. I know you’re a very capable Hero, but you will be receiving extra training, learning how to work with other Heroes, instead of being a vigilante. Got it?” “Yeah, I got it. May I be dismissed now?” “Sure. But I just want you to know that Mission Control is going to be keeping a very close eye on you for the next several months. Also, we reenabled your tracking chip, so don’t even think of trying to do something you shouldn’t.” Woolf went down to the first floor to talk to Alpha Team before they left. “Leaving so soon?” “Zib just called me and told me that there’s some suspicious activity in the Deltari system that he needs us to investigate,” said Furno. “Ooh! Sounds interesting. Can I come with?” asked Woolf. “Sure, you’re free to come along, but I’m surprised you want to. You’ve been stationed here your whole life.” “Honestly, I’ve wanted to join Alpha Team for a very long time, but I couldn’t stand working with Preston Stormer. All I remember about him is that he always acted like he knew better than me. Also, you know, a change of scenery would be pretty nice. Anyway, let me get my gear from my room and than we can head to the spaceport, okay?” Alpha Team’s shuttle left Antropolis with one more Hero than it came with. Blasting off into space, the shuttle began the long journey back to the Hero Factory Orbital HQ. ''11:05 Makuhero Standard Time, November 5, 2015'' Furno, Stringer, Bulk, and Nex entered Mission Control in the Hero Factory Orbital HQ. Zib was there waiting for them. “Congratulations on your successful completion of Operation: Vortex!” said Zib. “Now, we need to talk about the suspicious activity in the Deltari system.” “Yeah . . . hang on,” said Furno, looking around the room. “Where’s Woolf?” Woolf walked into Mission Control, looking shiny and new. “I had to spend some extra time in the Refitting Chamber. The engineers wanted to analyze my Hero Core for any signs of degradation, and they said I’ll probably have to retire in the next ten to fifteen years. They also replaced all my armor, including my nameplate, which now has ‘Α1’ instead of ‘Ο5-L’ on it.” “So I guess that means you’re now an official member of Alpha Team,” said Bulk. “And I’m excited about it, too! Anyway, let’s get on with this mission briefing. I’m anxious to go to the Deltari system!” Once the mission was briefed, Alpha Team, with their newest member, headed off to the Deltari system to add yet another mission to the long list of Alpha Team victories. Characters In order of appearance * William Furno * Jimi Stringer * Nathaniel Zib * Dunkan Bulk * Julius Nex * Rachael Woolf * Sarah Vortex